110 Short Quotes That Hit Different and Make You Think

Some quotes just hit different.

They cut through the noise and all the scrolling. Make you stop and actually think about your own life and what you want to do with it.

So in today’s post I want to focus on such sayings and share 110 of the most powerful short quotes that hit different and make you think.

I hope you’ll find something here that will help you in your life and will stay with you for a long, long time.

Short Quotes That Hit Different and Make You Think

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
– John Lennon

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
– Marthe Troly-Curtin

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
– Carl Jung

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
– John A. Shedd

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
– Oscar Wilde

“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life – it goes on.”
– Robert Frost

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
– Aristotle

“Sometimes, you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
– Dr. Seuss

“He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.”
– Lao Tzu

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
– Henrik Ibsen

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
– Oscar Wilde

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“There are only two ways to live your life – one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein

“The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
– Stephanie Perkins

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
– Aristotle

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
– Oscar Wilde

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien

Short Work and Motivation Quotes That Hit Different

“Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
– Jim Rohn

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
– Mark Twain

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
– Tim Notke

“No pressure, no diamonds.”
– Thomas Carlyle

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
– Henry Ford

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
– Mark Twain

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe

“Well begun is half done.”
– Aristotle

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
– Stephen King

“Do what you can with all you have wherever you are.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
– Confucius

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now.”
– Chinese Proverb

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.”
– Albert Einstein

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
– Henry Ford

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
– John Wooden

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
– Earl Nightingale

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
– Winston Churchill

“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”
– Will Rogers

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”
– Richard Branson

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
– Thomas Edison

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill

Short Quotes That Hit Different and Will Give You Clarity

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
– Soren Kierkegaard

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.”
– Leo Buscaglia

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”
– Stephen Furtick

“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’”
– Lao Tzu

“Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by your anger.”
– Buddha

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
– Joseph Campbell

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
– M. Scott Peck

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
– Peter Drucker

“If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.”
– David Allen

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
– Lao Tzu

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
– Seneca

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
– Epictetus

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
– Ram Dass

“Don’t be satisfied with stories. Unfold your own myth.”
– Rumi

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
– Lao Tzu

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“What we think, we become.”
– Buddha

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb

Short Quotes on Love and Life That Hit Different

“Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”
– Leo Buscaglia

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
– Rabindranath Tagore

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
– Rumi

“Love is a friendship set to music.”
– Joseph Campbell

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind, always.”
– Brad Meltzer

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
– Maya Angelou

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.”
– James Thurber

“If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”
– Wayne Dyer

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”
– Henry Miller

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
– Roy Croft

“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.”
– Albert Ellis

“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.’”
– Erich Fromm

“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”
– David Viscott

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
– Morrie Schwartz

“The best proof of love is trust.”
– Joyce Brothers

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
– Plato

Short Quotes on Happiness That Hit Different

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens. But often, we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
– Helen Keller

“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
– James Oppenheim

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
– Albert Schweitzer

“Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
– Rumi

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
– Haruki Murakami

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
– Maya Angelou

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
– Brené Brown

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
– Buddha

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.”
– Haruki Murakami

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone to feel like that.”
– Robin Williams

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
– L.M. Montgomery

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.”
– Zig Ziglar

“Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.”
– Jim Rohn

“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
– Plato

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
– Aristotle

“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
– Dalai Lama

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
– Dale Carnegie

“Sometimes, your joy is the source of your smile. But sometimes, your smile can be the source of your joy.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

Want more inspiration and timeless thoughts that make you think? Then check out these quotes that hit hard, the deep and meaningful quotes here and also this collection filled with short, deep and motivational quotes.